"Writing is a skill, not a talent, and thus one's ability as a writer can be improved by thoughtful effort. The problem with some people is that they graduate college as good writers, experience early success on account of that, and thus never devote themselves diligently to the relentless quest for improvement that could make them great writers."

And all the FMJRA gang (you know who you are) have helped immeasurably. Networking and collaborating to build a shared pool of readers . . . well, I think Trog and others are starting to see how the rules work, if applied consistently.

The woman who, in middle age, sprang to stardom on "Britain Got Talent," was a very polished performer at age 22 but, for whatever reason, never got a break. This kind of situation -- the undiscovered talent -- is really more common than might be imagined by people who aren't in the music business.

I used to know a bartender in Georgia who was a tremendous R&B singer. At one point, he had been under contract as singer for the group that eventually became famous as the Atlanta Rhythm Section. For whatever reason -- he told me the story, but I've forgotten now -- it just didn't work out, and he never really got another shot.

UPDATE II: Some commenters are saying that Susan Boyle's thick eyebrows explain her lack of '80s stardom. Let me remind you of something:

That's Brooke Shields on the cover of German Vogue in 1984, when thick eyebrows on women were all the rage. Well, Susan Boyle's eyes weren't quite as startling and her mouth wasn't quite as pouty as Brooke's, and so everybody in the comments is saying that Susan didn't become a singing star 25 years ago because she needed a pair of tweezers. I think the explanation is otherwise, but I'm waiting for someone else to tell me what it is.

UPDATE III: OK, some of you guys in the comments (talking about the fact that there 5,000 musical geniuses waiting tables and driving forklifts in Nashville) are getting closer to the truth about the situation. Now check out my attempt to explain why Susan Boyle went undiscovered.

Just imagine the outrage if the Bush administration had threatened to sic Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on its political opponents. But the obedient steno clerks in the White House press corps just do as they're told nowadays. If Robert Gibbs needs a shoe shine, there are at least three network correspondents who'll be happy to do the job.

While at your blog, however, I couldn't help noticing that the artwork at the top of your blog features a vintage pin-up of a sexy lady in a purple dress and black stockings, displaying her garters and a generous expanse of thigh.

NTTAWWT, but if you're going to exploit the cheesecake angle, don't complain about me exploiting the cheesecake angle. Because as Gloria Feldt says, "feminism is about justice and equality." Or, as the ancient Romans might say, "Tu quoque."

Bloggers: I hereby declare this National Offend A Feminist Week. Your expressions of reactionary, oppressive, patriarchal, misogynistic traditionalism are solicited. Search your mind, search the Internet, and come up with a post guaranteed to make Jessica Valenti and Amanda Marcotte even angrier than usual.

Please link here for inclusion in a special honor roll listing next weekend. Extra credit for women who find some way to enthusiastically embrace their traditional femininity. Now hurry up with that coffee, sweetheart. And make sure it's fresh this time . . .

UPDATE: You know what really offends a feminist? An old-fashioned classy dame. Because, according to feminist theory, classy dames from the Golden Age of Hollywood were exemplifying a patriarchal conception of femininity. Yeah, and they were hot, too.

The greatest mistake that feminists make is modeling themselves after men in the area of sexual promiscuity. Men are sluts because they can well afford to be. Women who believe that unfettered sexual activity gives them power are in denial of basic biological facts. The consequences of sexual activity falls squarely on women. Further, words like slut and skank are still part of vocabulary because that is how men view women who are "easy."

Now, I would quibble with the "men are sluts" part. Since it takes two to tango, men will be slutty only insofar as they can find opportunities. It's a supply-and-demand thing. But because feminists are liberals, they don't know anything about economics, either.

The other thing about "men are sluts": I am an ex-slut. Because my wife is sexy. But also because she's got a kitchen drawer full of knives, and I've got to sleep sometime. If more women were like my wife, there would be a lot less divorce. Maybe a few more widows . . .

Every Saturday, in obedience to Rule 2 of "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog," we feature our reach-around round-up, linking everybody who has linked us in the past week. For the past several weeks, Smitty has done this with the help of high-tech clonebots.

However, Smitty is spending quality time with his in-laws this week, and therefore, he's left me in charge of the clonebots. Since I'm a low-tech kind of guy and therefore don't know WTF I'm doing, this is going to be kind of a mess. If your link got left out, e-mail Smitty, and he'll get you hooked up next week. And so, here we go . . .

(Actually, now that I'm looking at what the clonebots brought back from Technorati, it seems there was a photo-finish for third place -- lots of bloggers linked us twice this week -- but maybe you guys don't mind? If anyone objects: Kiss the pig!)

OK, here's your Smitty's Clonebot Mystery of the Week: Try to find the link to us at The Steynian. There's one in there somewhere, but I can't find it. However, it's some mighty fine aggregation of linkage and lots of good stuff to read.

Jeremy at Rhymes With Clown agreed with my advocacy of youthful marriage, and shares some powerful thoughts of his own. Whenever this subject is raised, you can expect all kinds of silly objections and absurd accusations. My general point is that our current trend is toward later marriage and fewer children. Ergo, being countercultural means that when the question is asked, "When should I marry?" the answer is, "Sooner." And when the question is asked, "How many children should I have?" the answer is, "More."

Physics Geek ponders lingerie physics. Hey, Geek, since you're all into science and everything, maybe you can explain this mystery: Why is it that a photo of a woman in lace and satin lingerie is actually more enticing than a photo of a woman wearing nothing at all? Or is that just me?

Man, sorry this is taking so long, but ever since November, these freaking unionized clonebots act like they run the place. We continue:

More seminar training for newbie bloggers: Try a Rule 3. Go to Memeorandum. Find a story there you want to blog about. Link/quote the story, give your own commentary, and link/quote some of the other blogs that are commenting on that story, and be sure to hat-tip Memeorandum. (Right now Memeorandum has so much commentary on this Carrie Prejean thing.) If you'll do that regularly for a couple of weeks, eventually you should trigger their algorithm and pop up in the Memeorandum feed. We continue with the linky-love:

UPDATE II: BTW, the Ingraham/Feldt interview is the kind of TV I hate. Feldt filibusters and interrupts; Ingraham becomes derisive. As a journalist, it has always been my thought that, when interviewing someone who is transparently wrong, the best policy is to give them enough rope to hang themselves. I wish Ingraham had let Feldt finish her prefab talking points and then hit her with a hard question.

As to Feldt's talking points: She began with the assertion that "feminism is about justice and equality," which ideology Prejean is accused of betraying and therefore (to complete the syllogism) Prejean is not a feminist.

The argument against same-sex marriage can only prevail if we begin by rejecting the assertion that men and women are "equal" in the sense that feminists mean it -- identical and therefore interchangeable.

In fact, men and women are different, and it is their differences that create the necessary complementarity of marriage. Insofar as we accept the counterfactual feminist ideology of legally-mandated androgyny -- that men and women are the same, and thus fungible -- then it becomes impossible to argue coherently that it makes any difference whether you marry a man or a woman.

Now, I know what I prefer, and I know why I prefer it. But what do you prefer and why? Opinions and comments are solicited from readers, and if any of my fellow bloggers want to explore this theme in their own Rule 2/Rule 5 posts . . . well, I won't stop you.

Less than six months after the 2008 election, and just past the 100-day mark of Barack Obama's presidency, liberals have begun congratulating themselves on the triumph of their ideas. Paul Krugman on global warming:

The 2008 election ended the reign of junk science in our nation's capital, and the chances of meaningful action on climate change, probably through a cap-and-trade system on emissions, have risen sharply.But the opponents of action claim that limiting emissions would have devastating effects on the U.S. economy. So it's important to understand that just as denials that climate change is happening are junk science, predictions of economic disaster if we try to do anything about climate change are junk economics. . .

I think most of us can see that despite some painful setbacks, and likely more to come, time is definitely on the side of marriage equality in the United States. But are we hitting some sort of tipping point under a new administration and with a rush of recent successes in several states around the country?

Think back to the 2008 campaign and ask yourself: Did Obama and the Democrats win because of gay marriage and global warming? Obviously not. It was the economy, stupid. And yet in the wake of that election, liberals now believe they have a mandate to enact their entire agenda.

It's probably no exaggeration to say that Obama's presidency will ultimately stand or fall on its handling of the financial crisis. And at this point, with respect to all the frantic activity, the polls seem to be saying, so far, so good. . . .Of course, Jimmy Carter's early approval ratings hit 70% before beginning their long downward slide. And Bush's ranged as high as 95% after 9/11. As the Wall Street prospectuses all say, past performance is no guarantee of future results.Still, Obama's performance thus far ought to offer some clue: has he set the stage for economic victory, or defeat? In some sense, for all its exertions, the Obama administration hasn't actually done all that much.

Megan then proceeds to dismantle the fiscal assumptions of Hope, and you should read the whole thing. It is not unfair to summarize her analysis in three words: It Won't Work. The stimulus-and-bailout policies have not addressed the fundamental problems of the economy -- namely, an excess of debt and a shortage of capital to spur job creation -- while the entitlement trainwreck of Social Security and Medicare loom immediately ahead. By piling on new trillion-dollar deficits, at a time when the recession will result in significant tax revenue shortfalls, the Democrats are steering the economy into a stagflation trap.

If the economic situation actually worsens between now and fall 2010 -- and there are many reasons to believe it will -- the public-opinion polls of April 2009 will have proven a false omen, which served only to swell the pride that went before the fall.

Not to be a broken record about this, but I didn’t need Megan to tell me that we enjoy, ah, suboptimal economic oversight. . . . Or that the current administration seems to default to style over substance.

So how come we can see this and yet (if polls are to be believed) Obama's approval rating is at something like 110 percent? Might I suggest that we are paying the price of an educational system that renders a majority of Americans ignorant of, or misinformed about, basic economics?

The shortage of capital is going to be even more severe given the extent of government borrowing.

This is why stagflation is the inescapable result of the current policy. Begin with the fact that the collapse of the "housing bubble" has left millions of Americans saddled with a huge debt load for illiquid assets (i.e., their homes) that cannot be sold for a profit or leveraged to acquire additional liquidity. Now, consider that the stock-market collapse (i.e., from a 14,000 Dow to an 8,000 DOW in less than three years) has severely depleted the 401Ks and IRAs of tens of millions more Americans.

Between the declining market value of their homes and the declining market value of their retirement accounts, these individual Americans who had positive net worths in 2005 are now in no position to make new investments that would create jobs. The total supply of American capital has thus been diminished by a sum of however many trillions.

The Obamanomics answer to this is for the government to borrow many trillions more, in order to fund an expansion of public-sector programs. And government must borrow this money from the same global credit pool already depleted by the loss of capital caused by the collapse of the bubble.

Very good, class! The Fed will just turn on the printing presses to produce "new" money to account for the additional federal debt. This is inflation, which further erodes whatever asset value individuals had after the collapse and therefore leaves them less able to make new job-creating investments than they were before the enactment of these stimulus-bailout policies.

The erosion of currency value makes U.S. debt even less attractive, since inflation will cheat investors out of what interest would be paid on new bond issues. Thus, Geithnerism/Obamanomics results in a federal fiscal/economic policy that is chasing its own tail, a descending spiral of recession and inflation.

This is not merely The Road to Serfdom, but the road to Weimar America. Even if Obama, Geithner, Pelosi and Reid wised up tomorrow and suddenly reversed course by enacting sound policy, it might take 18 to 36 months of serious economic pain before we'd see anything like a real recovery. And since there isn't the slightest hope that they'll do the right thing, this crisis is going to get much worse over the next several years.

Things are about to get very, very bleak, and I've heard some informed investors talk about the Dow not reaching a bottom above 4,000.

In a nutshell, the point is that when the government's central bank intervenes in the economy to push interest rates lower than the free market would have set them, the result of its tampering is a massive cluster of errors . . . on the part of investors and consumers alike.

Of course, the professor's new bestseller, MELTDOWN, has been a must-read recommendation here for weeks. He makes clear that it is a fundamental error to describe the Bush administration's fiscal/monetary policies as "conservative."

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) strongly condemns remarks made over the last few days at various appearances throughout South Florida by Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders. In his speeches, he claimed that "Islam is not a religion" and "the right to religious freedom should not apply to this totalitarian ideology called Islam." Mr. Wilders also stated that the Koran is a book of hatred, and that Mohammed was both "a pedophile and a warlord."

Evidently, ADL is trying to horn in on CAIR's action. Pam Geller has much more, including a photo of Wilders speaking in a synagogue.

Women and old folks -- Health news is consumed mainly by women and the elderly. Healthy men in the prime of life tend to consider themselves invulnerable to disease. Every real guy learns at an early age that only wussie-boys fret over germs. Real guys instinctively loathe the neurasthenic wimp who explains his latest case of the sniffles by whining, "It's my allergies." Women, however, seem to have an inherent predisposition toward hypochondria. For example, women are the prime market for hand sanitizer; it's like they have a self-esteem issue about their immune systems. And old folks, of course, spend 80% of their waking hours worrying about their health, carefully monitoring themselves for "regularity" and visiting the doctor weekly to demand diagnoses and treatment for their various aches and pains. This is why Medicare is threatening to bankrupt America: Going to the doctor is actually a hobby for the elderly. Old folks love to collect things, and now they're collecting prescriptions at taxpayer expense. (Honestly: Go look at your Grandma's medicine cabinet.)

The illusion of executive competence -- One thing certain about swine flu: The panic will eventually end. A week or two from now, the outbreak will have run its course and people will stop worrying about it. But the ubiquitous image of Barack Obama on TV, speaking calmly in his resonant baritone about government measures to combat The Dreaded Swine Flu Menace, will have had their intended effect of conveying the idea that he is The Man In Charge, the calm at the eye of the storm, the antithesis of how George W. Bush was perceived during Hurricane Katrina.

Not coincidentally, if you scratch the surface of those polls showing how popular Obama is, you'll see that women, old folks and neurasthenic wussie-boys are his strongest constituencies. Ask Grandma -- if you can catch her between her taxpayer-funded visits to the doctor -- what she thinks of how Obama has handled The Dreaded Swine Flu Menace.

Obama's lackeys in the media know exactly what they're doing. Turning an ordinary virus into a Code Orange national-security threat is political gold for Obama.

Shanna Moakler, Co-Executive Director of the Miss California Organization, has confirmed the group behind the pageant paid for Miss California Carrie Prejean’s breast implants, weeks before she competed in Miss USA.In a new interview with Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush, Shanna confirmed the news."Did you guys pay for it?: Billy asked Shanna directly."Yes," Shanna said. "We did."The organization paid for Carrie’s breast enhancement prior to her competing in the Miss USA pageant, which was held in Las Vegas, almost two weeks ago."It was something that we all spoke about together," Shanna said referring to herself, Carrie and Keith Lewis, Shanna's co-executive director. "It was an option and she wanted it. And we supported that decision."Shanna, a former Miss USA herself, defended the Miss California Organization's decision to pay for the elective surgery."Breast implants in pageants is not a rarity. It's definitely not taboo. It's very common. Breast implants today among young women today is very common. I don't personally have them, but you know — they are," she added.

You lying bitch! You deleted your earlier Tweet, in which you denied the Perez Hilton story, then turned around and Twittered:

Just did Access Hollywood, feel very good about it and hope I cleared up things! Billy Bush was a great!

Public Relations 101: NEVER LIE TO A REPORTER. We are not stupid. You are not required to respond to any press inquiry. You can refuse to comment, "neither confirm nor deny," etc. But never lie, because once you're caught lying, your credibility is shot.

Also, not to fuel anyone's paranoia, but I'm getting anonymous tips that Carrie Prejean might actually be a Trojan Horse for the gay-rights movement. Prejean is friends with pageant director Keith Lewis, who was executive producer for a pro-gay documentary, "For The Bible Tells Me So."

According to my tipster's theory -- and this is just speculation -- the whole Perez Hilton question for Prejean was a setup, a stunt conceived to catapult Prejean to celebrity as a national spokewoman against same-sex marriage. Then, a few months later, she'll have a "Road To Damascus" conversion, claiming to have "seen the light" about how hateful those conservative homophobes are, and why same-sex marriage should be the law of the land.

Also, my tipster speculates, various people (including Shanna Moakler) are using the Prejean controversy as publicity to help them negotiate new reality-TV gigs. (Apparently, landing a reality-show contract has in recent years become the obsession of every washed-up starlet and D-lister in Hollywood.)

This is all just speculation from anonymous tipsters, and is close enough to being outright conspiracy theory that I take it with numerous grains of salt. However, it's worth keeping in mind as we watch the continuing saga of Carrie Prejean.

News is news, facts are facts, and -- most importantly -- traffic is traffic. I'm a capitalist blogger, and I don't see any reason to let Gawker and Perez Hilton monopolize the "Carrie Prejean fake boob" traffic.

He's also a friend of mine, which is why he asked me to denounce his latest article at The New Majority. I'd be happy to demolish his argument, except that it's such incoherent jibberish that it's impossible to understand exactly what he's trying to say. Perhaps readers will click over there and leave rude comments for Marier, just so he's grateful for the Rule 4 punk-smacking he so richly deserves.

A federal judge has awarded a former Army Special Forces commander nearly $500,000 because she was rejected from a job at the Library of Congress while transitioning from a man to a woman.Diane Schroer of Alexandria, Va., applied for the terrorism analyst job while she was still a man named David Schroer. He was offered the job, but the offer was pulled after he told a library official that he was having surgery to change his gender.U.S. District Judge James Robinson ruled Tuesday that Schroer was entitled to $491,190 in back pay and damages because of sex discrimination.

You could also view this as a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, since Shroer is an amputee.

UPDATE 2 PM:Keith Lewis is DENYING that either he or Moakler told Access Hollywood any such thing. However, Lewis did not deny that Carrie's got fake boobs. Don't worry: We are fearlessly committed to exposing the truth here.

UPDATE 2:30 p.m.: Via Twitter, ShannaMoakler also denies the Perez Hilton item. Folks, I'm trying hard to get to the truth. As I just said in an e-mail to Bob Barr, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. What did Shanna Moakler know, and when did she know it?

Did she buy them at Walmart? . . . Not a good look when you are competing in a national beauty pageant, but a great look for amateur night at your local strip club. Supposedly, the state committee for Miss California - USA bought them for her; my question is, Did they use a coupon?

BTW, if Miss Prejean wishes to deny that she's got implants, she should e-mail Smitty, who has been appointed chairman of the Fake Boob Investigative Commission.

UPDATE II: Alert the media!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELASEBREAST IMPLANT PANDEMIC MUST BE EXPOSEDInternet Investigation Launched in Wake of Pageant ScandalWASHINGTON, D.C. April 29 -- Revelations that Miss California USA pageant sponsors paid for Carrie Prejean's breast augmentation procedure have prompted a group of Internet activists to organize an investigation of the prevalence of silicone implants in the pageant industry."This is an aesthetic disgrace and an unpatriotic insult to the fine tradition of American breasts," said blogger Robert Stacy McCain, a leading online advocate of traditional values who helped launch the Fake Boob Investigative Commission. "These pageant officials are displaying a widespread and harmful prejudice against small breasts that damages the self-esteem of millions of women in this country. Their claim to value 'diversity' is clearly false, so long as they effectively banish healthy American A-cups from their competitions."Vowing to combat the misleading use of "fakies" in the pageant industry, the Internet activists announced a slogan for their campaign: "REAL PRIDE: EXPOSE THE FAKES!" The activists urge that pageant contestants with natural breasts publicly declare their unenhanced status, and "name names" of contestants whom they know to have had deceptive implant surgery."This isn't just about small-breasted women," McCain said. "Naturally large-breasted women are also being cheated by being forced into competition with these artificially enhanced frauds. It's the equivalent of illegal steroid use in sports."McCain said that at least one former member of Congress has expressed interest in the issue, and that the Fake Boob Commission is seeking legal advice on whether the use of breast implants in pageants violates state or federal laws, including civil rights statutes.

Legal advisers say a class-action lawsuit is possible, if we could find enough beauty pageant contestants with real breasts who feel they have been victimized by discrimination.

UPDATE III: We have a theme song, "Miss California," by Jack's Mannequin:

"There have always been many men . . . who sit around Washington observing and commenting on trends, and then there have been those rare men who make trends happen. . . . Whether or not a conservative resurgence is likely, it can only be accomplished by those who begin with the assumption that it is possible, and then work tirelessly to turn possibility into reality."

In the wake of two straight drubbings at the polls, much of the American right has comforted itself with the idea that conservatives lost the country primarily because the Bush-era Republican Party spent too much money on social programs. And John McCain’s defeat has been taken as the vindication of this premise.

First: Conservatives are not interested in "comfort." Second, the simple lesson of the past two cycles is something that anyone who has been paying attention since Ross was in middle school would tell you: Lie down with Bushes, wake up with Democrats.Douthat has never been a reporter. His life has been confined to academia and think-tank punditry in elite precincts: New Haven, Cambridge and Washington. He does not have any scope of experience to write about anything except the opinions of the elite, which are already easily available to anyone with access to NPR. Ergo, Douthat is redundant at best, and allowing him to write this kind of Big Picture analysis is to subject the reader to an arrogant, puerile know-it-all-ism.

"Educated elites have taken over much of the power that used to accrue to sedate old WASPs with dominating chins. . . . The educated elites have even taken over professions that used to be working class. The days of the hard-drinking, blue-collar journalist, for example, are gone forever. Now if you cast your eye down a row at a Washington press conference, it's: Yale, Yale, Stanford, Emory, Yale, and Harvard."-- David Brooks, Bobos in Paradise (2000)

On behalf of my fellow alumni of Jacksonville (Ala.) State University: Fuck you, David Brooks.

No such luck, you arrogant son of a bitch. People pay good money to watch me smack you around every Tuesday, providing a fee-for-service incentive that delightfully enhances my enjoyment. There's no escaping this weekly engagement, so long as the New York Times can afford to continue paying you $300,000 a year to write your columns -- and who knows how much longer that will be?

Shall I flay your latest column about Mexican swine flu? It hardly deserves the effort -- a Seinfeldian column "about nothing." Health officials battling the pandemic aren't reading the op-ed pages of the Times in search of advice, and what manner of advice would they get from you, anyway? Name-checking a Princeton professor and referencing the World Health Organization (predictably brown-nosing the elite) en route to a buzzword-clogged whiffle-ball conclusion:

The correct response to these dynamic, decentralized, emergent problems is to create dynamic, decentralized, emergent authorities: chains of local officials, state agencies, national governments and international bodies that are as flexible as the problem itself.Swine flu isn’t only a health emergency. It’s a test for how we’re going to organize the 21st century. Subsidiarity works best.

If David Brooks is paid $300K/yr. for 2 columns/wk. (104 columns/yr.), simple math tells us that each column earns him $2,884.62. Since this latest outing is 799 words, this means Brooks earned $3.61 each for his first use of "dynamic" (ka-ching!), "decentralized" (ka-ching!), "emergent" (ka-ching!), then cleverly doubled his $10.83 to $21.66 by immediately repeating the same three buzzwords -- ka-ching! ka-ching! ka-ching!

My, how the money rolls in. And as to what Their Mister Brooks has added to the reader's understanding of the Mexican swine flu threat -- hey, next time, David, why don't you rack up a few bucks by quoting some Dire Straits lyrics about "money for nothing"?

It's the lack of value, you see, that makes you so useless. Suppose, purely as a hypothetical exercise, that I could be persuaded to accept the Walter Duranty-tainted Sulzberger cash and consent to have my byline appear in the credibility-impaired New York Times. Suppose, further, that I accepted this unfathomable $3.61-per-word rate for mere op-ed opining, but under the special condition that I write no more words than the topic deserved. What might that column look like?

How to Avoid Mexican Swine FluBy Robert Stacy McCain1. Avoid swine.2. Avoid Mexicans.3. Otherwise, take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

My count: 14 words, not including the title, byline or numerals. So that's a $50.54 paycheck for a "top Hayekian public intellectual." You see, perhaps, why Old Media dinosaurs like yourself are an endangered species, David.

However, exposing the overblown emptiness of your latest column is such a simple task as to be unworthy of my attention on this, the 20th anniversary of my wedding. No, by God, when Jax State sends forth a man into this world, he is expected to acquit himself manfully. Therefore, I'll direct my readers to the work of a real journalist, Howard Kurtz:

Last Tuesday evening, Rahm Emanuel quietly slipped into an eighth-floor office at the Watergate.As white-jacketed waiters poured red and white wine and served a three-course salmon and risotto dinner, the White House chief of staff spent two hours chatting with some of Washington's top journalists -- excusing himself to take a call from President Obama and another from Hillary Clinton. . . .For more than a year, David Bradley, the Atlantic's soft-spoken owner, has hosted these off-the-record dinners at a specially built table in his glass-enclosed office overlooking the Potomac. . . .Among those in regular attendance are David Brooks and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gene Robinson and Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, NBC's David Gregory, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, PBS's Gwen Ifill, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer, Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum, former Time managing editor Walter Isaacson and staffers from Bradley's Atlantic and National Journal, including Ron Brownstein, Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Rauch.

Well, well, well! We see now why dear Dave has such upscale notions about what's to be seen when you "cast your eye down a row at a Washington press conference." Dare say you're nearly the low man on the totem pole at those clubby little elite get-togethers at the Watergate, eh? David Gregory and George Stephanopoulos are both multimillionaires, just for starters.

When a fellow starts hanging around with all those bigwigs, chowing down on salmon and risotto, it's easy to see how he could imagine himself a Platonic archon, solving the world's problems one $3.61 word at a time.

Oh, don't think I begrudge you the risotto, Dave -- as a strictly neutral, objective journalist, I'm mighty fond of a free meal myself. The second-rarest sentence in the English language is, "Gee, Stacy, thanks for picking up the tab." (The rarest sentence is, "Gee, Stacy, why don't you tell us what you really think?")

Now, if we count the fine breakfast Stephen Gordon's mother fixed me whilst I was in Hartselle, that's at least six free meals in four days. So I've got you beat all to hell in that department, Mr. Brooks -- even if I had to drive 1,700 miles and sleep in my car to earn it.

I didn't notice any white-jacketed waiters offering to pour wine for me, but then again I don't reckon The Atlantic Monthly gives a damn about folks in Alabama and Georgia. So you just report whatever Rahm Emanuel tells you to report, David Brooks, since that's all anybody who really matters cares to read about.

Just one question, Mr. Brooks: When you were chowing down with Rahm at the Watergate, did you happen to notice if any of those white-jacketed waiters were Mexican?

Take two aspirin and call me in the morning, Dave.

And the rest of you: Hit the freaking tip jar! This lunatic gibberish may not be worth $3.61 a word, but man cannot live by free food alone.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter will switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and announced today that he will run in 2010 as a Democrat, according to a statement he released this morning. . . ."I have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary," said Specter in a statement. "I am ready, willing and anxious to take on all comers and have my candidacy for re-election determined in a general election."He added: "Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

Exit lying. One less member of the Senate Republican "Jellyfish Caucus." Specter reminds me of the high-school slut trying to sleep her way to popularity -- a weak reed, blown by the shifting winds. The fact that the national GOP apparatus lined up behind this venomous crapweasel in 2004 is all you need to know about what a worthless waste of time the national GOP apparatus was during the Bush/Mehlman era.

Even if Specter wins the Democratic primary (which is certainly not a given) and wins the general election (also not a given), no one will ever respect him because he is dishonorable and untrustworthy. A pox upon him and his ilk. (Via Memeorandum.)

If Specter had made this party switch right after his vote in favor of the stimulus package, and before he decided to oppose card check, he would have been in a far better position to claim the Democratic nomination.

Interestingly, he remains a foe of EFCA, which means that labor is free to fund and help a real Democrat in the Democratic primary. Bizarre choice. Had he decided to back EFCA, as he has always done so in the past, he'd have labor's full support. Now, he gives the opposition an opening to take him out in the Democratic primary.

When you see Kos using the phrase "real Democrat," it means that the Nutroots will back a Ned Lamont-style challenge to Specter in the Democratic primary, a challenge that every conservative should encourage. The more bitter the Democratic primary, the more obscure and extreme Specter's primary opposition, the better for conservatives.

BTW, I disagree with Klein when he says this:

This is a huge blow for Republicans hoping to stop Obama's agenda in the Senate.

Specter is a "huge blow," in one sense of that term, but he was never a reliable vote for anything. He is one of those vain, unprincipled creatures -- like Robert Byrd or John McCain -- who revel in their self-created image of being a "public servant," an image that is merely an excuse for selfishness and dishonesty.

When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing.

If there is one thing that Reagan firmly stood for as firmly than his hatred of Communist tyrrany, it was his opposition to the Keynesian economic hokum that led to Carter-era "stagflation." If you don't understand why the bailout-and-stimulus idiocy of Obamanomics is bad policy -- It Won't Work -- you need to be reading Hayek and Mises.

By choosing to die on the hill of the stimulus package of all things, Specter reinforces whatever notion there is that stimuli and bailouts are Democratic, not Republican, pet toys. Since professional Republicans are currently scattered in the wind, trying desperately to latch onto the anti-stimulus/bailout Tea Party movement, cementing that divide may come back to haunt Democrats when those policies (inevitably, I think) become so derided that even Barack Obama's impressive popularity can't rescue them.

Senator Specter has confirmed what we already knew – he's a liberal devoted to more spending, more bailouts, and less economic freedom.

The Club For Growth is "heroic," I say, because their support for Republican conservative Pat Toomey was what finally forced Specter to admit that he is a Democrat. As I said at The American Spectator:

Specter will be less useful to the Democrats now than he ever was when he had an "R" beside his name.

He was certainly never useful to Republicans. All things considered, swine flu has never been a greater threat to America than RINO fever.

UPDATE VI: Some commenter just suggested that, in celebrating the RINO's departure, conservatives like myself were "purging" Sphincter. Nonsense. He purged himself. After years of zealously advancing the Democratic agenda with an "R" beside his name, he's now joined Jumpin' Jim Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee in the Formerly Useful Idiot Coalition.

Hit the tip jar, you ungrateful bastards!

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